fine art and other random stories

After having a few days to mull things over, I’ve decided to post about a critique I was given last week. Through the Art Institute, Olympus held an event, bringing both Jay Kinghorn and Anne Day in to speak about their work. While this was exciting, I was even more thrilled that they both were taking some time Friday morning to look at some student work.

I’ve been working on several personal projects on the side lately, and I couldn’t have been more excited to get the feedback of a pro. However, it didn’t exactly go as planned. Though I had never heard of Anne Day before this event, I really wanted to hear what she had to say about my work. I am a firm believer in the fact that having as many people look at my work as possible is a good thing and can actually help me excel. Then I heard what she had to say…

The short version is that basically, she questioned my ability to be a photographer at all. She said that my images weren’t even technically sound, let alone conceptually. Now, let me point out that I had yet to even explain my concept to her. She made one up, and then told me I didn’t quite hit it. Well, DUH! And as far as having technically sound images? How the hell did I make it this far through school with getting nothing less than a B without knowing how to work a camera? Seriously!?

In any case, after about day and a half of sulking, I decided that, even though this was my personal work and it stung a little more, I wasn’t going to let it get to me. As long as I knew what it meant to me, and that I felt I was doing my best and loving my work, that’s really all that mattered.

After coming to this revelation, I started to talk to a few other people that had reviews with the same photographer. Turns out, all but one I talked to had almost the exact same review I did! What!?! Who does this chick think she is? Well, that just angered me to no end. Some of us ended up talking to one of our instructors about  it, and the look on her face was priceless! After the shock wore off, it was pure frustration. At least she was on our side!

We finally determined she was a photographer on a power trip who needed her justification that her own work was good, and that she was just afraid of how good we actually were… she was afraid we were going to steal her jobs!

In any case, I’ll leave you with a few images that she so kindly critiqued for me – I’ll let you decide for yourselves. If you want to see more (and ongoing – more is being posted all the time!) of this series, visit my series blog: urbansilence.wordpress.com

my smile will not mislead you…

It’s been an interesting couple of days, to say the least.

I’m pretty sure I’m still attempting to process everything in my brain right now. SO… in the meantime, I will leave you with this:

bittersweet birthdays

Well, I guess you can say its been a long week… although I’m still not convinced it’s a politically correct term. I mean, the minutes aren’t longer; the days don’t have more hours and there certainly isn’t an extra day at the end.

However, when you’ve got a lot on your mind, plus your regular load, it can feel just that.

Logically, I guess I’ll start with the ‘bitter’ since it’s the first part of the word, and it’s better to end on a high note (But I DO promise that there IS a ’sweet’ to this story!). Some of you know, some don’t, that my cousin’s 10 month-old daughter has been, well, having some medical issues. She went in for a routine checkup (she’d been getting a lot of ear infections and was finally getting over them) when the doctor noticed some oddities and wanted to check them out. Later that day, they found out she had cancer.

It wasn’t a good situation to begin with, as it had already spread to most of her body. (They found out a few days later that it was actually already settling on her bones.) They did some chemo, and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. But in the end, God decided she was better off with Him. Unfortunately, that day was my birthday.

Now, normally, this happening on your birthday isn’t always a bad thing. I had never met her (although, a long time ago, I used to be pretty close with my cousins), and I could mourn her death, but those who really know me, know the greater significance this particular child’s death held for me on this day. You see, the little girl’s name was Cora. She was named after our great-grandmother, who I was very close with, Cora Fisher. In 2003, she passed away just days before my birthday. I’m not convinced that my birthday doesn’t hold a curse for me and all those I know named Cora.

However, since I did promise a ’sweet’ section, I won’t let you down.

First off, I’d like to say that I am married to the most wonderful man in the world. He loves me more than I can ever express in words, and it shows. He got a few of my friends together within the last couple of weeks, and planned a whole night for me. Dinner with the girls (sushi, miso and sake bombs – oh my!), a nice girly movie (he’s just not that into you…), and of course, the evening was finished off with a nice surprise party!

He went to a lot of work for this, and they even themed the party. Although, I’m pretty sure it had two themes…

The first was ‘Intervention.’ Classic! Now, if you don’t watch How I Met Your Mother, two things will happen: 1. you won’t understand this theme. 2. I’ll hit you upside the head with a newspaper until you do! It’s hilarious!

The second theme was a beer tasting party. He went through a lot of trouble finding beers and pairing them with their corresponding foods. Not to mention he even printed up a bunch of cheat sheet/rating cards. I LOVED it!

Now that the themes are out of the way, here is a little video I put together of the footage we captured that night… although, neither theme is represented. (My justification is that a male was put in charge of the video taping!)

there’s no ‘i’ in team

Apparently, it’s quite easy to learn a lot about youself in a very short amount of time.

I’ve only  been awak for 8 hours today (hey! I didn’t have class today, so I slept in a little… don’t judge!) and since then, I’ve done nothing but learn new things about myself. Well, I guess I shouldn’t phrase it that way. I’m pretty sure I already knew these things, I just refused to fess up to it…

I’ve been trying really hard lately to watch what I say and how I say them to other people. I know I can be, and obviously sound) pretty selfish sometimes. There’s an easy explaination for this: I am selfish.

It’s not that I mean to be… I’d like to think I care more about my friends and family that surround me than myself, however, I’m afraid if I said that, I’d be lying 80% of the time. Even as I began to ponder this, I was talking to a fellow student in class this afternoon, who was telling me about the marketing materials he was gathering in order to graduate the end of this quarter. I found myself interjecting in unnecessary places to get a word in edgewise about what I wanted to do, or what I liked. What? I’m not graduating… Why wasn’t I just listening to him or giving him feedback on his ideas? When did this become a conversation about me? Oh yeah, I forgot: the moment my pea-sized brain entered the conversation, I took over.

On top of this, in my marketing class this afternoon, my instructor had us take a ‘Trust Quotient’ quiz to see how trustworthy we were. Granted, this was supposed to be from more of a business standpoint, but I feel I can apply that to my life in general. I didn’t do so hot. Out of a high score of 15, I scored a 5.4. Boo.

The high point was that I scored exceptionally well in the ‘Intimacy’ category, which tells me I’m very good at trusting people, and people trusting me, confiding in me. Which is great! However, they also told me that I needed improvement in the ‘Self-Orientation’ category. Yep, apparently I need to think about my client’s needs, not my own. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

Anyway, in all honesty, I decided from then on, the rest of the afternoon, I was going to write down all the selfish thoughts I caught myself having. (Key word here: caught. I can gaurantee that there are some missing from the list…)

Feel free to laugh incredulously. I did.

• I hate the wind. It ruins my hair.
• I am not going to do personalized chopsticks (as a leave-behind for graduation). That is the dumbest idea ever.
• WOW! I look really cute in this hat!
• Oh, I already know how to do that. Heh, they must be pretty dumb for not figuring it out.
• She sure is taking forever with that book. Doesn’t she realize that it’s my turn now?
• Um, excuse me Mr. Smelly Man, I believe it was my turn next. (In line at Barnes & Noble)

And that was just in an hour and a half! Whew! I’ve got some things to work on…

On the plus side, I did talk to a girl from school who was telling me that she was feeling pretty down and lonely lately, so I invited her to come out with the ‘gang’ tomorrow night in honor of Kerry and my’s birthdays. I think she’s gonna come.

Well, I guess we’ll see how tomorrow goes.